Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Wheels - Keep the 20's or go smaller?

I just bought a 2014 Ram 1500. It still has the original tires and wheels - 20 inch wheels and the crappy P tires on it. On my last truck, I sold the 20 inchers and bought 17's and put Load Range E tires (10 ply) on it. I liked the ride better and the E tires really held the corners well. The other huge benefit is tough sidewalls as it's rocky where I hunt.

Ok to my question. I would rather not buy 17's or 18's for this truck but keep the 20's - just to save the expense of buying wheels. My concern is if I go to a Load E or even a D (8 ply) tire then it's going to ride like a rock on the 20's. I'm afraid if I go to a C tire (6 ply I think), I may have sidewall issues in the woods.

Go with smaller wheels..... you’ll want more sidewall if you use it offroad

This.

It depends. What size tire can you shoehorn in there? A 33" tire on an 18" wheel has 7.5" of sidewall. A 35" tire on a 20" wheel has the same 7.5" sidewall. I have a 3/4 ton that came with 20"s. I almost sold them for 17's or 18's, but I didn't. I have 275/65/20 e's on it and they are about 34" tall. I haven't had any issues with sidewalls, but I don't do a lot of gnarly rock crawling. Ride has been just fine, and is better than my other 2500 on 17" wheels.

Pretty much echo this. I have 20's on my F150 and considered looking for a set of 18" take-offs when I was tire shopping last fall. I ended up keeping the 20's and am running the same size as K1500 (275/65/20) and have had zero issues with sidewalls.

Are you running 20's in E's? If so, how is the ride on the highway?

Trust me, it’s a night and day difference. More sidewall is what you want. Can you make it work? Yep. Is it ideal? Far from it

Sell the 20’s and buy the 17’s or offer them up for trade and buy tires then

Just a passing thought...………………

Will there be a brake clearance issue dropping down 3" of wheel diameter in your application?? Hopefully not. But in some instances there is.

Just make sure the 17's are gonna clear your brakes before you seal the deal.

sell the 20's.........

some HS kid will jump on them priced right......

buy a new tire/wheel pkg.......smaller diameter if no fit/brake issues

take advantage of DTD's promo sale & get up to $300 back in rebates

no I do not work for DTD

https://www.discounttiredirect.com/

Yeah, E’s. I can’t tell a difference from the P rated tires that were on there before

Another angle: You’ll save more $ and keep your wheels in better shape, in the long run, with 17s.

I’ve gone over that over and over. It’s not worth the cost. Plenty of good priced tires in 20” now days.

If I were buying a new truck and could chose wheel size I'd buy 17" wheels. My truck has 18" wheels. But I can't see enough difference to spend the money. Unless someone were going to pay me enough for the factory wheels and tires to come within about $100 of what I needed to go with 17"s I'd just dance with what I had. I doubt there would be a brake problem until you go with 16" or smaller wheels.

have a 2105 ram 1500 4x4, at 14000 miles I put the 20" BF Goodrich all terrain tires load range D on the truck have 61000 miles and the tires have been great,

Thanks for the info guys. After looking into things, stock Ram 17 inch wheels are only 7 inch width which is too narrow for 285's. The other options in 17 are Rebel wheels or aftermarket for $600. Couple that with the fact that Craigslist must have 8-10 sets of 20 inch Ram wheels on sale and no one wants them. I kept the stock 20 inch wheels and put on Goodrich KO2's in 275/60R20's.

I went from 20” wheels on my 2016 F150 to 17’s and love them. I also went with 6 Ply 285/70/17 Ridge Grapplers and they have been fantastic so far as well. The best upgrade I made was Billstein 5100’s in the front and rear. The Billstein’s with 17’s give a nice smooth ride.

7s really arent too narrow for 285s at all. Many, including me, prefer to run a narrower rim.

I am currently running 33x12.50-17s on an OEM 7.5" wide 17 wheel without issue.

Friends Ram came with 20's, going with 17's gave it a better ride and tires cost less.

My 2007 Ram 1500 came with 275/60-20's (33", good road tires, however they're P series car tires). I sold them and went with 265/70-17's D load (31.5", looked and felt puny as hell). Next set of tires were 285/70-17 D load (32.8") and they look and work great from off-roading to snowplowing.

My 2015 Ram 2500 came with 275/70-18 E load (33.2") and they're about perfect for my uses, off-roading to snowplowing.

NYH1.

3, maybe 4 good reasons for big wheels.

1, makes a stiffer sidewalk with a light tire, better handling.
2, allows a bigger rotor, increased braking and reduced fade. (Almost never the case in normal vehicles)
3, you like the "look"
4, you belong to a minority, or "Wannabe"


Why not?
Tires often more expensive
Tire and wheel more easily damaged
No sidewall flex,
offroad decreases traction,
Onroad, makes a rough ride.
Makes your truck look like a ghetto cruising Escalade, not a working pickup.